


Did You Never Call? (I'm Sorry)

by nightgardening



Category: R.E.M. (Band)
Genre: 80's Music, Abusive Parents, Flashbacks, Gay, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Love, M/M, Musicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightgardening/pseuds/nightgardening
Summary: An R.E.M. fanfic meant to replicate seeing them back during the Pre-Construction Tour. This is written from the POV of a gay man attending a concert with his boyfriend to see fellow queer icon Michael Stipe perform.Check out the link below to check out the concert setlist and the exact location.https://www.remtimeline.com/1985.html
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	Did You Never Call? (I'm Sorry)

May 18th, 2001  
Vancouver, British Columbia

The click of the receiver meeting the phone startles me, though I am the one to perform it. My hand and my brain, somehow, don’t connect. Suddenly my throat is dry, an intrusive thought that demands immediate action, a squalling infant in my neck. I tear open the fridge and pour myself a glass of grape juice, and as it splashes into the glass realize I’ve bought the wrong kind. It’s white grape, devoid of colour.

The juice now poured, I become aware of the song playing on the radio. It's So. Central Rain by R.E.M. I loved the band in college, I saw them a few times, but the song is torturous; the jangly guitar is sharp and the mumbling singer is flat and droning and I question whether I ever really liked the band at all, if they were always this awful and before I know it the song is over and there is silence but I still go and turn off the radio. Click.

...

April 28th, 1985  
Rutgers, New Jersey

It's my first time seeing R.E.M. and I'm already hate the experience. It's pissing rain, unexpected for spring in New Jersey. I left the Pacific Northwest for college to escape the rain. At least I've dealt with it my entire life; my boyfriend, on the other hand, is unused to it, and is noticeably miserable.

I nudge Paul. Do you think they’re still going to play, I ask him, but also half ask myself. He points wordlessly to the departing security guards, all five of them in a hunched-over clump, an unintentional recreation of a roman turtle battle formation. The enemy are the billions of raindrops, splashing on mud, on skulls, on skin, on clothes. Paul’s wearing a trash bag he found in the trunk of his car. I teased him for it earlier, but I don’t have the heart for it anymore I’m more prepared in my water-resistant raincoat, a gift from my parents back in Oregon. From my limited point of view, I can see headlights beaming on in the distance; the less dedicated leaving the field. I almost want to. The show was slated to begin a half hour ago and the only music I can be certain of hearing tonight are the raindrops hitting my oversized hood. It’s surprisingly loud.

I’m just about to tell Paul we should go home when he points to the singer stepping gingerly out of the band’s motor home and onto the stage, which is the flatbed we’ve all managed to crowd around in the hopes of summoning them out. It worked, evidently. He shakes his arms and I can see droplets fly from him in the stage lights that flash on. If you're willing to stand in the rain and listen to us play, we're willing to play, he says. We all cheer, all 50 or so of us left.

The rest is a blur. The other members materialize behind him suddenly. I don’t even notice until they’re halfway through their first song; I’ve been blinded by joy and I’m laughing and mouthing all the words at the same time. I hug Paul and jump up and down, a demonstration of affection we usually abstain from in public. I throw back my hood so I can hear the song better. It’s an old Velvet Underground cover I have a bootleg of. In seconds my hair is plastered to my scalp. I close my eyes and feel the waves of sonic elation washing over me, accompanying the trickle of water rushing down my back and down my face and into my mouth, still half-mouthing the lyrics.

There’s a pause in the set. My eyes flicker open and I’m meeting Michael Stipe’s gaze. He leans over and compliments my raincoat, giggling as he does so. He asks me what song I want to hear and his hand reaches out and brushes my hood. His face is so close to mine I can feel the moisture evaporating from his warm skin and his soft breath and I can visualize the olfactory molecules of the salty tang of his sweat mixed with the icy water. I don’t hesitate, I know what I want: South Central Rain, please, I tell him. He smiles and as he does so a drop of water falls from one his long eyelash to his cheek and I realize my face is burning.

He melts back into the band and they reconvene onstage, a tripod of silence as he tells the others and all I can hear is my own breath and the blood rushing in my ears and the rain on the grass and finally the soundscape is drowned out by that guitar lead in, the same one I had heard so many times before in my car, so many times alone and now I’m not because he’s here, they all are, and in the audience we are all the same, all crowded so close together our thermal energy is absorbed by one another and we fend off the storm. Every beat of the drums is our collective heartbeat, and as the words being to flow we can all breathe again and Mike's bassline we feel in the soles of our feet is connecting us all together, a network of fungi.

Later, in the car, I take off my coat, and Paul takes off his garbage bag, and we watch shadows move around in the band's trailer as they conduct their post-show rituals. We nestle close together, holding our hands together until they unfreeze. When I start to drive, Paul falls asleep in his seat and I stay well under the speed limit to keep him from waking.

...

August 5th, 2001  
Portland, Oregon

There is a box in their basement that I know contains that coat.

I set the coffee down on the kitchen table, afraid to make any noise. My mother is across from me, watching. We both say nothing. The air between us undisturbed by transverse waves is our agreement. The relationship between mother and son is always strained, but it’s worse without my father here. He, at least, was measurably worse than either of us. I motion toward the stairs and then I am standing in front of a closet in the stuffy subterranean room. The last time I saw my father he was wearing my raincoat. Or it wasn’t mine, because he sent for a new one. I ripped it, although I forget how, and when I told him about it he had wanted to replace it. I wanted to refuse, but how could I have explained why I didn’t want him to. He said all businessmen use umbrellas anyway and that I should stick to the status quo. He had retired and he wouldn’t be able to afford a coat as nice as that one.

So I let him have it, let him get his warranty replacement. He chose orange, for safety. Mine was blue. Blue like Michael’s eyes, like the lighting gels on Paul’s face, like his station wagon. My father hated me, and he loved me. Hated me for who I wasn’t, the unspoken secret between us, and hated me for who I was, for Paul, for my ‘lifestyle choices’, a phrase layered with so much politely hateful subtext I can only think of it in his voice.


End file.
